CHAPTER EIGHT - Facing the Enemy
They were not taken by surprise this time; the Order members were out and about in the streets, wearing their everyday robes and their everyday expressions, waiting for trouble to find them. A few of them were willing to find trouble, those of them thirsty not for blood, but for vengeance, for the end of the war, for the end of the terrorism that had crept into their lives without so much as a proper warning.
There were new warriors this night, and tested warriors who were commanded to stay back by their general, by a wizard who undoubtedly needed nothing as much as he needed one night's selfish rest.
The messenger of their front slipped among browsing crowds in Diagon Alley, inconspicuous save for the bright beacon of her hair. It gave the members something to look for, something of which to be aware, but it would be covered when the battles began, hooded, the flame momentarily extinguished as a sort of disguise.
Ginny walked alongside her brother, her hand slipping into his for just a moment, mirroring the people they'd been not so long before. She hadn't wanted him out tonight, had pleaded with her mother to make him stay, had pleaded with Dumbledore to allow him just a bit more time with his wife.
But her mother would not listen to her pleas, listening with a hardened face and deaf ears as Ginny plead her case; Molly had begged much the same of her daughter for her daughter and been denied. She would beg no more cases for herself because she saw she would lose, and she could not stand the thought of losing both her pride and her children.
And Dumbledore was no better, shunting Harry into back rooms of the Black house, reminding him he needed to be whole for the final battle, whenever it might come. It seemed coarse to Ginny, though she knew it was true, and as she'd stood waiting for direction, waiting for the maneuvers, she'd seen in the headmaster's eyes that his own callousness hurt him, that doing what was best for the greatest good was paining him.
It pained him to see the people he had taught, the witches and wizards who had once been young, so young, too young to know these things, as mere soldiers.
And that was what he had seen Ron as, sending out another able-bodied, unfailingly loyal Weasley into the ranks because he knew it would do them good.
As they approached a corner, Ginny squeezed her brother's hand once more before letting go and slipping down the alleyway, determined to get any last words-bad choice of words, Gin, she told herself-from everyone else before things exploded.
She had made it only halfway through the few wizards and witches on the Muggle side of things before it all happened.
She had been speaking with Kingsley when she'd seen it, the Dark Mark, floating in the sky in plain view of Muggles in a clear show of defiance, in a show of promised vengeance, in a show of threatening horror.
Kingsley shoved her so roughly she stumbled, putting her hands blindly in front of her to catch herself, both palms hitting the boot of an automobile. She started to look back, only to have him roar at her.
"Back home!" he yelled, and his meaning was clear enough.
Their leader would need to know.
She felt something-Merlin, a spell, a spell, but what kind?-throw heat onto her cheek, and her stomach rolled even as she Disapparated with the perfectly valid fear that she might Apparate right into the path of another spell. It was likely, it was so likely in a situation like this, and for one of the first times, she felt fear for herself.
She Apparated directly in front of where the house would be, waiting until she was positive the coast was clear before speaking the words that would allow her entrance.
She was breathless when she entered the house, but she had no need for words, no need for speech to these people, to Harry and Dumbledore, Luna and Hermione and a few others who had been grounded for the night, if for nothing else than to defend the headquarters, if it came to that.
Hermione was on her feet before Ginny could even get her bearings, her fingers pressed to Ginny's cheek. "What is that?" she asked tightly, and though it was on the tip of Ginny's tongue to tease Hermione for already learning to nag like a professional mother, the irreverent remark dried up when she saw the hard look Harry was giving her.
"Close call," she said, and even as she admitted it, her knees gave a hard shake, a single buckle, nearly spilling her to the floor before she could control it.
"Everyone has their instructions," Dumbledore said, pointing at a large, comfortable chair he'd summoned. "Your orders are to stay here now."
Ginny saw her sister-in-law's wide eyes, the ever-curious eyes of the perpetual journalist, and knew she could not stay. For Luna's sake, she would go back out. She would find out what was happening to Ron, and to the others.
And much of it was selfish, as well. She could not stand to sit idle in the face of all that worry, because it would only infect her.
And she needed to know about him. Would she know him behind his mask? Would she be able to feel him slashing his way through the crowds with his wand? What would he look like under that mask? Grim? Excited?
"I have to go," she said thickly, and she went out the way she came in, weak-kneed and sick.
She had to know.
~~~
Nothing.
They all had nothing for her, and she could easily see why, she didn't hold it against them. They had no words, for they had ceased to become beings with words and had instead turned into animals of survival. That, she thought, was why they needed her. Because her survival was made more secure by her own compliance, by her pacifism. She was their words, and they wanted their words to live.
She felt impotent instead of important, however, as she watched with a scream locked behind her lips-not a message, mustn't release it-as a barely misdirected spell sent a shower of stone shards down on Charlie, scoring his hairline and sending a thin trickle of blood down his face.
But she couldn't resist, couldn't keep from watching every single attacker that passed her with her heavy cloak, passed her for more favorable targets, to pluck off those most obviously doing good.
Is that you?
Has it come to this?
But none of them felt like him, none of them moved like him. Or perhaps that was just wishful thinking.
But she could not stand it, could not stand the ignorance and could not stand the impotence, and suddenly, she could not stand the thought that they had done this to her, not only once, but twice now, twice they had shorn her life to nothing but bare bone, taken the man she had trusted and revealed him to be someone else, and the scream finally loosed from her lips, keening even through the melee of battle, bouncing off walls, and she sent forth a blast from her wand, knocking a masked Death Eater from his broom.
He had been seated much too clumsily to be Draco.
Her battle cry rung in her ears because of the constriction of her hood, and she started to throw it back, ready to let fly another spell, even if it were only a stunning spell, she needed it, damn it, she hated these people.
And as long as she knew she wasn't hitting him, she would be fine. Things would be fine, she insisted to herself, taking a deep breath to stun-
The breath was knocked loose from her as a hard arm anchored around her stomach and a large hand clamped over her mouth.
~~~
It was ironic, he thought, that it would take no more than a sartorial change to take him from the ranks of innocents to the ranks of imps. A robe, a mask, they made all the difference.
And the actions, of course. The actions made all the difference.
And it was even more amazing that the clothes made no difference in some instances. In some instances, you could the nature of the man-or the woman-even through the clothes.
He hauled her back against him, his lips to her ear, and he spoke loudly, knowing he would never be heard over the screams-Merlin, those screams, he didn't know how much longer he could stand them-all over the city.
"What do you think you're doing?" he shouted in her ear, turning her and shoving her into a shop the shopkeepers had abandoned at the first sign of trouble.
Ginny raised her wand against him as he slammed the door and faced her, unsure of why she even did so-residual fear, helpless anger, leftover childishness, perhaps.
But for one brief, brief moment, she wanted to hex him.
And he could see it.
His breath was stolen from him, and he merely eyed her with the same steely stare he'd used on her when she'd raised her wand to him years before, but he was hurt, oh so hurt.
"I told you to be careful," he finally said, his throat raw.
"I need-" What was she going to say?
"Go home," he said, and now he sounded very near to weeping. He had seen her hex Pansy's uncle, a troublesome old bastard with a ridiculous fondness for brooms, had seen her movement, the way her body stilled, the way her left leg cocked back, the way she threw her head back just before stunning him. Even without the cry coming from her lips, he had known it was her.
And for a bitter moment, he'd wondered if she would have done the same to him. Thinking of her wand raised against him, pointed at his heart, he thought he had his answer.
A not-so-small part of him wished she'd gone ahead and done it.
It would hurt far less.
"What about you?" Ginny asked, and she could hear the tears in her voice, the weakness, and she wondered how much more of this she could take. How many tears could you cry over someone who still loved you?
Or perhaps she was supposed to wonder how many tears she could cry over a Death Eater?
"What about me?" he asked incredulously. He'd watched, he'd waited. He'd spent more time watching for her than doing anything else, and had spent more time doing that in the past days than he had doing anything else, because he loved her and knew her and knew she would not be careful.
He had wondered, in a few moments of better temper, if she simply did these things to be contrary to him.
"Me?" he repeated again. "I would die if anything happened to you. So as long as you're being careless, it matters fuck all what I do."
She eyed him wordlessly, her eyes wide and suddenly dry, and she stepped forward and balled the material of his robes in her first, thinking it was not so different than hers, dark and nondescript.
It was not so different from theirs, though.
She kissed him without any thought to gentility, her teeth scraping his lips, pressing his lips back into his own teeth, and she tasted blood and the stale, bitter taste of fear under there somewhere, and she bit his lips as she let him go, her eyes fierce.
"I would kill them if anything happened to you," she said flatly, and Disapparated.
He stood where he was for a moment, and hanging his head, he let the mask slip from inside his sleeve.